The best way to email students in your class is to use AsULearn’s Announcements or QuickMail block since these do not require the setup of a mailto: handler or email client.  AsULearn is synchronized with Banner so you can be sure that you are contacting ALL your registered students during the volatile drop/add period. With each of these options, a record of your communication (forum post or email) is retained in the course. 


Students can see previous Announcements posts from the main course page. Quickmail messages are sent to students' email accounts or their AsULearn Messaging drawer (speech bubble icon, top right), but they can delete them from either location.

Step-by-step guide to Add Quickmail block

The statement in the info block below is no longer true. Under Configuration the Teacher can select whether to show the Quickmail block to Students.
Should this be discouraged? i.e., "not recommended"  Is this a viable option if groups are not used and therefore group messaging not available? 

If the Quickmail block is not visible on your course site, a Teacher must add it.

  1. From the main course page, click the gear menu (top right) and select Turn editing on

  2. Click the hamburger icon (top left) to open the drawer menu and select Add a block at the bottom.

  3. Select Quickmail from list of blocks. If it is not in the list, it is already turned on for your course.


The Quickmail block is not available in the Student view.



To Use the Quickmail Block

To Send Quickmail

  1. Locate the Quickmail block on the main course page.



  2. Click Compose Course Message  (see below for Other Quickmail options)



  3. Click the dropdown list for Who should receive this message? Selections include All in Course, roles (everyone in the course who has that role), groups, and individuals by name.
  4. Click the dropdown list for Who should NOT receive this message? to Exclude anyone that is included in your selections above. For example, to send a message to everyone in the Apples group except Woodhugh Bugoff, select Apples (Group) to receive the message (previous step), and then select Woodhugh to be excluded from receiving it, because Woodhugh is a member of Apples.

  5. In the message area, enter a Subject for you message and compose the email you want to send. Apply the optional settings below.



  6. Click the Send Message button to send or schedule sending your message. Click Save Draft to save what you have composed and return to it later. Or click Cancel to abandon the message entirely.

Other Quickmail options



View Drafts that you have saved to Edit or Duplicate the message to modify and Send, or Delete.

View Scheduled messages to View the message, Send Now instead of waiting until the scheduled time, or Unqueue to move the message to your Drafts. View a message to see the option to Duplicate it.

View Sent Messages then View a specific message and its Send Report, as well as the option to Duplicate it.

Click My Signature to create one or more message closings with your name and any other information formatted like you want to include at the bottom of messages. From the Compose Course Message page you can specify which Signature to use (or None). NOTE: Signatures are associated with your AsULearn account and not specific to a course, so if you want course information in your signature you should have separate ones for each course and name them so you can identify them by course.

Configuration provides settings and defaults for using Quickmail specific to your course, that is, your Configuration settings will be different for each course. Click the onscreen blue question marks (question) for help with the settings. Click the Save preferences button to save any changes: Back will cancel your changes.


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Students can reply to these email messages and the replies will go to your email account.  NOTE:  Unlike the Announcements Forum, when you send Quickmail, there is no student-accessible copy of the message posted in the course.  You, as the teacher, have access to your Quickmail "history," but the messages you send to students are only sent to their Appstate Gmail account and will only be visible there.

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